Rehabilitation with a rucksack

When we last left Pfc. Alan Carroll, there were some guys from the Army around him suggesting that this would be a good time to get out, to become a civilian again.

But they didn’t know him well. For starters, Carroll, 21, of Bridgewater, N.J., comes from a military family. He joined the Army out of his desire to do as others over the generations have done and, in fact, wants to be a career soldier.

In time, Carroll dreams of being a warrant officer.

“I figured, it’s my turn,” he said.

The battle to recover from four gunshot wounds that included hits to a leg, arm and his back wouldn’t be easy.

When told that his injuries were too serious to deploy with his fellow soldiers from the 510th Clearance Company, Carroll launched into a rigorous rehab program.

That winter, he went to the gym. Much of the hamstring in one leg was destroyed by the bullet, and he could barely walk. After building some strength into the leg, he donned a rucksack at home and walked a mile every day.

Carroll marched with a limp but pressed on. As time passed, he put more weight into the rucksack. Soon enough, he was jogging.

The speedy recovery was no surprise to anyone who knew Carroll. In the Army now for around two years and eight months, he had a bad motorcycle crackup before the shooting but managed to be ready to deploy.

It was a Friday night one year ago and Carroll rode onto a Business 190 entrance ramp in Nolanville when he saw a flash of headlights and felt a big push from behind. He flew over the handlebars of his Hyosung GT 650R, hit the vehicle and flew into the pavement. A friend riding with him also was struck, his motorcycle crushed and fused to the speeding car.

Carroll survived the accident with a badly broken collarbone and three fractured toes, but was ready to deploy when November rolled around and it was his turn to visit the soldier readiness center.

There was no question about deploying — then or in the days before the 510th Clearance Company’s soldiers boarded the plane this past January.

Troops in the company’s 2nd Platoon, which lost Spc. Frederick Green, Pfc. Michael Pearson and Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, felt just as Carroll did.

Lt. Ryan Corkin, the platoon’s commander, said the first thing his men settled on was that they were soldiers on a mission.

The shooter wasn’t going to get in their way.

“It’s not that we’re moving on,” Corkin, of Cincinnati, Ohio, said at Fort Hood a week or so after the shooting. “But we’re moving on with a purpose.”